NuArt Festival in Norway

The city of Stavanger in Norway is getting ready for the world leading street art festival, NuArt. Founder and Director Martyn Reed and his team have been running the non for profit festival since 2005, and it has grown into the world leading street art festival, showcasing pioneers and emerging talents within the street art scene.

NuArt Festival provides an annual platform for national and international artists who operate outside of the traditional art establishment. The work produced stimulates debate by challenging entrenched notions of what art is – and more importantly, what it can be.

Martyn Reed mentions ‘NuArt aims to explore and present new movements and works with artists operating across the spectrum of ‘Street Art’. Street art has its roots in situationism, graffiti, post-graffiti, muralism, comic culture, stencil art and activism amongst many other things. It is without a doubt the most exciting development in visual art for decades. A ‘movement’ that has caught the imagination of the general public, collectors, auction houses and curators the world over.

NuArt continues to pioneer a new breed of art exhibition that is neither institutionalised nor commercial. Without the usual restraints of curatorial and corporate preferences, the event consistently brings out the best in its invited guests.’

From the first week of September an invited international team of street artists leave their mark on the city’s walls, both indoor and out, creating one of Europe’s most dynamic and constantly evolving public art events.

For its 17th edition, this year’s theme is POWER and through their work, the artists will discuss who has it, who doesn’t and how street art can challenge established power structures. “NuArt’s programs are designed specifically to explore and silently challenge the mechanisms of power and politics in public space” says NuArt Festival Founder and Director, Martyn Reed, and adds “This year’s NuArt Festival will bring together a diverse combination of artists, activists and academics to reflect upon the fluidity of this transgressive new movement.”

While the festival itself runs through 15 of October, the NuArt Street Art Tours enable visitors to discover the open air museum in the streets of Stavanger with murals and interventions created by over 50 international artists invited through the previous years: from ROA ‘s monumental animals, Faith47’s ethereal female portrait, playful characters by Ernest Zacharevic and German duo Herakut, or politically charged murals by Icy&Sot and MaisMenos .